Sugar Daddy Sam

A Response to Soda Pop Controversy: 3/24/25

“James, recently RFK has moved to welfare recipients free soda courtesy of federal food stamps program. Some conservative commentators made noise that this was the government butting in on individual choice. Of course, these pundits were found to be receiving money from soda companies. It turns out that 20% of Coke’s income is through food stamps.”

-Lynn, on an editorial call

…

So he ghetto grocer was arrested and the editor laughed as she heard me get angry for the first time since 2022.

In the 1980s I overheard bosses discussing paying a lobbyist to go to Annapolis. In the mid 1980s $250K was raised by 5 owners of small chains and independent stores, for the purpose of legally bribing state politicians to vote against food stamp reductions. That independent store owners, who had been left largely to serve the welfare areas as chains moved into more profitable locations, were moved to this, struck me. For these ghetto grocers were constantly oppressed by food stamp customer, as these same folk committed much crime at month’s end, even while spending food stamps!

I found out that a “foodstamper” was welcome to eat an entire chicken from the deli rotisserie and throw the bones in my dairy case. For that fat bitch would be transferring more government money to my employer on that afternoon—never a morning—than I would be paid for a month’s work. The food stamp grocery budget is generally 10 times that of a wage earning American buying GMO slop, and 4 times that of a white collar American buying high quality food.

Food stamps used to break over 3 days, from 6th to 9th. Then, once electronic stamps came out, I was on scene when all Maryland registers, in March 1993, froze up, when the system crashed. It took 40 cashiers 4 hours to put back the 3 carts per mammajama. Food stamps were then spread from 6th to 15th. Then, at end of April, 2015, the DOJ, BGF, Crip52, Fed Fake riots erupted, as they always do, being planned, at the end of April, when Negroes rise from arctic slumber and an extra week after food stamps run out triggers the impulse to acquire what their salivating maws desire.

The civic side of government was appalled at what the criminal side had done, and spread food stamps out from the 5th thru the 25th.

Now, Mister John used to say, in terms of food stampers, when “stamps broke” and the locked door groaned under the massive weight of the starving poor, as I stocked the Gravy with Salisbury Steak, “Jimmy, stack em high—they think its meat!”

I used to stock a full pallet of Sunny Delight twin-pack gallons every second day during food stamp week, in 1993-4. But at the end of the month, the last two weeks, I just leveled it down and hollowed it out, making it ready for rotation, when the thirsty lovers of juice that did not need refrigerated would storm the aisles.

Hexametaphosphate was a key additive.

Tampico, the second tier brand sold by dairys made from chemical concentrate and water, mixed in milk jugs, used refractionated vegetable oil to get that smooth synthetic motor oil texture for the negro throat.

In meeting with a new dairy supplier, vying for business, in 1990, the owner called me in as the dairy clerk and I insisted, for our business, a free fill, and a baseline price and roller rack for Tampico and belly wash [yes, our term for colored water with sugar in jugs]. Selling shelf stable beverages permitted more space for things like milk and soy milk, as us small outfits had no expansion options for coolers.

Additionally, since food stampers think that “individually wrapped cheesefood singles” are cheese and that milk naturally turns yellow when made into cheese, and that white cheddar has somehow been bleached by “the Man,” the food stamper is again the boon to the ghetto grocer, who may move his margarine, velvetta, cheese whiz, etc, onto regular shelving in the dairy aisle. Not only does the ghetto person grasp for color and taste without nutrition to fill his longing belly, but the even more impoverished ghetto grocer, one power outage from bankruptcy, yearns to sell things upon which bacteria decline to dine.

The wholesaler gets his 6%.

The retailer is supposed to get between 18% and 40%, but actually nets less than 1%.

The manufacturer nets what he wants and foistes costs down the line, forcing holiday goods down the supply chain long before they can be sold.

Eventually retailers fail and are acquired by wholesalers, who become slaves to manufacturers. For manufacturers have branded their products and established rabid, unthinking, consumer demand. Decades of advertising produces slavish brand loyalty passed down through the generations. The retailer is then forced to stock and even promote items that he makes no profit on:

Cleaning items [since women are most brand loyal] are #1.

#2 is soft drinks,

#3 breakfast cereal, of which the grain and sugar constitute less than ½ of 1% of the cost to manufacture, with advertising accounting for most of the cost.

That cost, decades after advertising on TV have expired or declined, becomes a pound of flesh owed to the soda gods by the retailer, who the soda companies deal with directly, unless the retailer has been acquired by a wholesaler.

The retailer, in the war between Coke and Pepsi, becomes like an Indian tribe being bribed to take a side by French or English and punished for not becoming a proxy actor.

Pepsico, which owned Frito, when I worked for Brian, as an illegal, unpaid, cash employee, helping him on his truck, had chip boxes to be reused. One of my jobs was to stack and count these flats on the back of the truck as he drove to the next stop. He was fined 17 cents for every box he failed to return. On the side of the box was a globe, with two hands, half grasping the globe, half praying to Dagon, the symbol of domination. Under this read, “Preserve your Pepsico Share Power.”

When threatened for paying me, who could be a spy, for Utz chips or Coke, Brian started meeting me at stores or dropping off orders I would sock when I got there by foot or bus. But when he caught me drinking a Coke he took it from my hand, threw it in the trash, gave my $5 and said, “Buy a Pepsi. I know people who have been fired or demoted for having Coke in their house when the boss came over for a party. I’m fucking serious, Jimmy!”

Over the years, every Coke and Pepsi person lived in fear of being seen with someone who drank the enemy soda, being keen to buy your drink for you! I have told this to people and they scoff as at an urban legend. The fascinating thing is, that top beverage sales people, supervisors, tended to be the best looking, smartest and boldest women, and studs: like Brian, and a special forces veteran who befriended me, or Joe, who once fought 4 men at one time—really high agency people who then get captured as company agents to the retail tribes and wholesaler nations.

As an independent grocer, you decide, “Are we a Pepsi store or a Coke store?” I have attended a half dozen such meetings.

There are 7 price zones, from Cosco/Wal-Mart down to 7-11. You have a fixed cost that gives little profit. That soda is a “lose leader,” to keep brand-loyal customers coming. Additionally like cigarettes and alcohol, being other addictive substances regulated by the government, while sodas are regulated by the company, a retailer may not sell for less than the suggested retail for his price zone. He is not even allowed to lose money on Coke or Pepsi unless they say so!

Black stores sell more Pepsi products.

White stores sell more Coke.

RC products, a distant third tier, are sold in desperation by a retailer trying to hold onto market shares.

The Coke and Pepsi drivers had the best tow motors! Even the soda grunts had status.

Once, I was called into a negotiation with the owner and a Coke rep, the district manager. The man demanded of my dainty, slut boss, “Another cooler on the front end. To maintain your price line. We have two. Pepsi has two. That off brand cooler, that needs to be Coke, or, you will be selling Coke at 7-11 prices—do you really want to be a 7-11?”

Her status as a store owner, looking at losing the last of her white customers, her parents’ old customers, broke her to tears. She stepped out, I think to go blow the electrician on her mother’s old desk. I was left in the room with this heavyweight bully and said, “I sell more out of that cooler than out of the two Pepsi and two Coke coolers combined!”

“But you stock it. We stock our own.”

“Exactly! I need to have items to stock on the front end, so when some big goon like you starts strong-arming the customers on the sidewalk I can get out there and beat his ass!”

“You are treading on thin ice,” he warns.

“I live on thin ice. If you don’t cut her a break, you and I are going over the railing at the top of the stockroom stairs, and your fat ass is landing first!”

“What?”

“And, I am going to pull her sister in and push for being a Pepsi/Shasta store. Shasta has a plant two miles away. I’ll buy trailers.”

“Okay…”

“How about this. I know the Pepsi guy. I’ll get him aisle stacks. I’ll give you top shelf in the indie cooler and put your minnies on top of your coolers…”

I was nixed in this by the owner, who relented. I then removed some food display space and had the indie guys bring in their coolers and stocked them, myself, anything to take sales from Coke and stay on the front end ready to chase crack heads and wrangle Negro predators. You see, the soda companies lust after the unbranded consumer, the price hunter, the impulsive [read low income/low IQ] customer.

I left a year later.

The store went out of business 10 years after I left.

A chain built on the site, and has yet to open its doors, though the building is three years old.

The brand, the need to belong to Bernay’s two-legged herd, to stampede forever to the waterhole to quench a thirst forever unslaked, is even more addictive than sugar and caffeine so favored for branding.